Hi All,although I have seen this sentiment before, it is raising its head again, and I am curiousto quote the post

original post of inspiration wrote:would somebody who have no more doubt, doubt that we live 2500 years after the Buddha with other conditions?

(emphasis added)I am curious in relation to what the Buddha Taught how these "other conditions" make it no longer relevant today?

I personally see no difference on the practical level and the level of the teaching, sure externally we have different means of distracting, pleasuring, & harming ourselves and others, but on the level of practice it is the same from my perspective. Even on the more metaphysical level of rebirth, heavens... these have not been disproved to my knowledge either, so can still be seen as relevant & useful by those who believe in such things.those of you who believe there are different conditions... than 2600 years ago please clarify what they are and why?

so here are more precise questions for those who believe there are "other conditions" and remember responses maybe challenged so use evidence/support where possible.

Question 1 wrote:what are these other conditions?

Question 2 wrote:why & how are they different to causes in the time of the Buddha?

Question 3 wrote:how & why are the teachings disproved, irrelevant, not appropriate due to these new conditions?

Question 4 wrote:how is this outside world more materialistic/worse for practice/what ever else you believe it to be, and how does that change things in regard to the teachings & practice?

Question 5 wrote:how are we different (in relation to the Buddhas teachings & practice) to people back when the teachings took place? and why does this matter?

Question 6a wrote:how & why is it more complicated/difficult to see today than then? how do we proliferate, ignore the obvious, fool ourselves any more than then?

if 6a is not relivant to you please answer 6b instead

Question 6b wrote:how & why is it easier to see today than in the Buddha's time? how don't we proliferate, ignore the obvious, fool ourselves less than then?

if both 6a & 6b are not relevant please come up with your own question and answer it, but please indicate a question you are answering

(edited to try to make it easier to understand.)

Last edited by Cittasanto on Tue Sep 25, 2012 6:03 am, edited 8 times in total.

He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion … ...He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them … he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.John Stuart Mill

It's not that there are other conditions, but the conditions are more present, more "real". With other words, there is a plenty good construction of illusion inside the palace. That is why we need to go outside, to see that it is still the same.

That is multilayer, sometimes its a little to early to reduce it to such a profound layer. We also easily tend to see everything just as mind thing and forget about the matter. Also this can be used as an alternative palace and we feel quite unsupported.

It's not that there are other conditions, but the conditions are more present, more "real". With other words, there is a plenty good construction of illusion inside the palace. That is why we need to go outside, to see that it is still the same.

how?you are being obscure in both posts here, there were several questions, not just one!

He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion … ...He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them … he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.John Stuart Mill

Hi RetroI have a slightly different perspective, but certainly see and agree what you are saying.so long as there is greed hatred and delusion nothing is different, different things for these to latch onto doesnt make them work differently.

He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion … ...He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them … he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.John Stuart Mill

It's not that there are other conditions, but the conditions are more present, more "real". With other words, there is a plenty good construction of illusion inside the palace. That is why we need to go outside, to see that it is still the same.

how?you are being obscure in both posts here, there were several questions, not just one!

That people like to capture something, make something real is still the same. But in a very materialistic world far away form the possibility to see cause and effect at the same time, even on a very raw level, it tends to be more seize up.

The palace has the same conditions as the outside world has the same contentions, it's just the possibility to see that, which is maybe more complicated. We even do not understand greed, hatred and illusion and misinterpret it with unpleasant, unpleasant and unpleasant and intellectualize it to a extension we can call it greed, hatred and illusion.

So there are no other conditions?the quoted text in the OP clearly claims there are, and others have made this sort of claim, so nothing but hollow claim?

so lets change the questions (which will be added to the OP in a moment)how is this outside world more materialistic or worse for practice or what ever else, and how does that change things in regard to the teachings & practice?how are we any different (in relation to the Buddhas teachings of what the problem is & its cause) to people back when the teachings took place? and why does this matter?how & why is it more complicated/difficult to see today than then? how do we proliferate, ignore the obvious, fool ourselves any more than then?

all that springs to mind is there are those who will see with ease, those who will see with some difficulty, those who will see but ignore, and those who will not see at all (if I remember the four types of ability correctly) that Sahampati used to persuade the Buddha to teach. their really doesn't seam to be any difference on the level the Buddha was pointing at no profound level, just the open palm of a teacher.

He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion … ...He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them … he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.John Stuart Mill

Cittasanto wrote:So there are no other conditions?the quoted text in the OP clearly claims there are, and others have made this sort of claim, so nothing but hollow claim?

so lets change the questions (which will be added to the OP in a moment)how is this outside world more materialistic or worse for practice or what ever else, and how does that change things in regard to the teachings & practice?how are we any different (in relation to the Buddhas teachings of what the problem is & its cause) to people back when the teachings took place? and why does this matter?how & why is it more complicated/difficult to see today than then? how do we proliferate, ignore the obvious, fool ourselves any more than then?

all that springs to mind is there are those who will see with ease, those who will see with some difficulty, those who will see but ignore, and those who will not see at all (if I remember the four types of ability correctly) that Sahampati used to persuade the Buddha to teach. their really doesn't seam to be any difference on the level the Buddha was pointing at no profound level, just the open palm of a teacher.

Well, it's a matter of layer. Of cause on every layer there are the same conditions but they are of different sensibility.

Let me explain the thing with a pig. A big pig is a very greedily being and even domesticated in that way it is useful. While a wild pig is still a very flexible being, the long time domesticate pig is incredible inflexible as there is no real need to be flexible. It get's it's food and when something is itchy in the back there are different ways to get the problem fixed, even other take care of it, that the pig does not need to take care of it's back.In this way the domesticated pig has gown terrible inflexible. The conditions are all the same. It eats and it empties it's bowels. When there is food, there is food, when there is bung, there is dung. The conditions are the same.Even the experience and it's happening eye, ear, nose...intellect is the same. So one day the pig might see another pig while losing a dropping. It even wight have the feeling that such a drop is not really beneficial and would be better missed. So if the pig is real good, it will come to the conclusion that some problems are because some pigs lose droppings. But as unfexible the pig has grow, it will not easy see the whole circle and would not understand its ways. It's not easy possible for the domesticate pig to get that flexible, or even the idea that it needs to grow flexible to observe it like it really is.

It might be that many pigs are running around having realized the dirt and try to find a solution. Mostly claiming other pig "Take care of your droppings" but at the same time they do it as well, in the back the "owner" carrying about it's droppings. Then there are also many pigs, who focus on transcendent the droppings to a scale, where they can find some satisfaction and overcome it's problems, but there are really less who really try to get deeper and uproot the cause under the subtitles level. Why is that so, because the pig has grow very unfexible and would need to put much effort into it, to get flexible as it would be needed to understand cause and effect on it's lowest level.

Conditions are always the same, the exist is always the same, but the flexibility of the pig changes with it's general tendency. That a unfexible pig would reach awakening will be very, very rare.

In that way also the similes of the Buddha, taken from the root necessaries of live, understandable for everybody are not easy understood today. We might know some things from books and from TV, but how many are there who know what it means to work for his food directly or what is a heartwood and what is bark used for.

But no worry, the conditions to understand the conditions are under a constant chance, sometimes up and sometimes down and at least a individual problem. But that is also why it is hard, the more lazy one is the more harder to gain flexibility. So we need the second teacher next to Buddha to wake us up all the time. It's the very friend Dukkha we love to banish not understanding that the teach leading to awakening is a pair. Suffering it self and the way out. We would just come to the extent suffering is understood by our self.That is why so many heavenly beings are not able to understand the Dhamma.

There are condition when Dhamma will bloom, I remember seen it even told by the Buddha. Conditions are always the same, but they change. How paradox.

Sometimes the conditions are so incredible "good" that we even hardly come to see the dropping face to face. And without meeting the divine messages, there is simply no chance to gain something that is called right view, the very first step. How many today are used to face death, non cosmetician sickness and aging like it is. That is fare away from our building for livestock and there will be less who will see it as beneficial to go out for it. We can do the things theoretical as well... That is way it is a practice tradition, out in the field and the deepest secret wholes in our mind. Easy to get the conditions on a level understood, but there are more and more, the same, but to understand it more profound even they are the same.

He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion … ...He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them … he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.John Stuart Mill

hanzze wrote:In that way also the similes of the Buddha, taken from the root necessaries of live, understandable for everybody are not easy understood today. We might know some things from books and from TV, but how many are there who know what it means to work for his food directly or what is a heartwood and what is bark used for.

The Buddha used simple metaphors and analogies, drawn from real-life examples that the people of the time could relate with. But many of his similes are universal enough to stand the test of time. Like this one:

On one occasion the Blessed One was staying among the Ayojjhans on the banks of the Ganges River. There he addressed the monks: "Monks, suppose that a large glob of foam were floating down this Ganges River, and a man with good eyesight were to see it, observe it, & appropriately examine it. To him — seeing it, observing it, & appropriately examining it — it would appear empty, void, without substance: for what substance would there be in a glob of foam? In the same way, a monk sees, observes, & appropriately examines any form that is past, future, or present; internal or external; blatant or subtle; common or sublime; far or near. To him — seeing it, observing it, & appropriately examining it — it would appear empty, void, without substance: for what substance would there be in form?

I've not seen the Ganges itself, but I get the idea well enough, having seen such things on other rivers, and it's such a wonderfully apt simile for the mutability and lack of any essence in form, whatever time you might live in. And there are heaps of other similes that still speak to the heart today; despite our fancy clothes, skyscrapers and cities managed by computers, we still get born, get sick, age, die, and experience a fair bit of 'general dukkha' inbetween. Our surroundings have changed, but the average human heart hasn't.

with metta

_/I\_

Then the Blessed One, picking up a tiny bit of dust with the tip of his fingernail, said to the monk, "There isn't even this much form...feeling...perception...fabrications...consciousness that is constant, lasting, eternal, not subject to change, that will stay just as it is as long as eternity." (SN 22.97)

Did you read it carefully (incl. the links) and considered about it? I can not make you understand my answer. This poor word are all I can give. It might be sad but true.

The conditions of the world ("the all", like retrofuturist told) are always the same, the conditions required to escape for "the all" are always the same but the conditions to do it is based on an amount of defilements and with it the conditions "reflected" in the world. This condition is very individual and has nothing to do with the time but there are times where the conditions of defilement's are it's reflection in the outside give rise to birth as well as decay of a teachable way out.

Defilement are changeable individual and well done in the past, the worsted conditions will make one able to find a way out. We actually live in a very dark time even the mass would call it very bright, but actually it's natural is the cause why it appears.

Everybody is able to practice the wholesome 10 deeds all the times, but only those who had reached a level near the lowest levels will find a way out. There are times and conditions when people are faster in digging it up. We are in a global merit wasting time. Should be no problem for the an individual being, it just requires much self-honesty.

hanzze wrote:In that way also the similes of the Buddha, taken from the root necessaries of live, understandable for everybody are not easy understood today. We might know some things from books and from TV, but how many are there who know what it means to work for his food directly or what is a heartwood and what is bark used for.

The Buddha used simple metaphors and analogies, drawn from real-life examples that the people of the time could relate with. But many of his similes are universal enough to stand the test of time.

All of them are universal to stand the time, but people are not universal near to nature and the possibility to observe cause and effect. When one tells you a simile in regarding with rice farming you would maybe know a little about it, but you would not easy have done it. When one tells you a simile about racing pigs, you might have seen a little here or there, but you would not have been on side from the birth till it's cooking in your food. When one tells you a simile of hardwood, you would not easy have seen a tree which has one inside and how difficult it is to find the right tree.

When one tells you a simile on a different higher level, a simile maybe with a laptop, it's easy that you catch 100 other ideas as this things are much more complex and able to lead astray. When we talk about death and you have seen a corpse, when we talk about sickness you know how sickness really looks like as well as if you know how aging really is, then there is a level to understand much, but in a world where sickness, aging and death are stories and far away form daily live, excluded like all other ugly things one will not understand. He might do his practice out of other reasons and of cause to benefit, but he would not find any real reason and good effort for the wish to leave the circle of birth.

Buddha leave his palace as he had the feeling that there is something totally wrong and he did not take his amusements on his way, he needed to see reality under the lowers level defiled by "the All" there where fear of it's fundamental essence starts to arise.

Hi hanzzeyou are making statements not backed up with any demonstratable examples of how things are different, I have said it one and I will say it again here, you are focused on one question when there are now ten to answer, it is very circular, and quite frankly statements dont show anything other than your own opinion on the matter.I read your responce and the links I have also listened to the original talks of some of those papers several times, and they do not answer the questions as far as I can tell, if it does please show where each of the questions are answered in that response! The questions are quite direct and put in a way where each can be answered individually.

He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion … ...He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them … he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.John Stuart Mill

Maybe I am to less precise but I do not understand your way of thinking and how to make it thinkable for you.

First you say:

and quite frankly statements dont show anything other than your own opinion on the matter

and than you state:

The questions are quite direct and put in a way where each can be answered individually.

I am not able to form a answer that fits to your ideas, i am not a mind-reader and if I would give you the answer in that way that you would need to think about it. Maybe you are able to reread your manifested thought before you give them to a simple minded person like me.

But how about you. What is your individual answer on the OP questions which is not just your opinion? Or did you mean separately but eternal?

Hi Hanzeethese where qualified within the context of the line they were originally found in.there has not been any demonstrable examples of difference from now & what would of been present in the time of the Buddha or before.

the questions are not relevant to me as there is a demonstrable effect of the teachings seen by myself and others which points to no differences not explainable from the teachings and confirmed by the practice (as already eluded to in reply to an earlier post to yours, which disqualified any levels or ability to understand as a qualified example as it shows different levels of ability to understand existed back then (look for Sahampati). to provide another example of this, there are gross & subtle manifestations of the root causes of greed, hatred & delusion, seen within the texts, so observed within the time of the Buddha, this is also seen by practitioners today, this is why for me there is no difference (as already explained). so as you are arguing for there being 1. different causes (of which you have admitted there are none) & 2. today is worse for practice due to some difference, as these would effect practice and the light the teachings should be viewed in, it is worth hearing what the problem is.

He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion … ...He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them … he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.John Stuart Mill

im not sure what the mode of dress for women in india/nepal was but living in the US and watching television for 10 minutes and you are bombarded with breasts. and what is the cause of lust to arise? focusing on beauty. granted its my own will to look at the breasts but it make it a lot easier for me to practice renunciation if women covered up more. not that im at a point in my life where i want women to cover up, im not that spiritual. ha. im just making a statement that practicing now may be harder than practicing then what with all the lustful ads.

dear cittasanto,once someone has found the path the buddha has described, and developed the technique of practice the buddha has described. they become their own teacher their own master, and can progress on the path at a pace that suits them. i see the world we live in today, with the financial difficulties, the mistreatment of animals,and the amount of drugs humans are taking just to deal with the pain. i also see the confusion and fighting that is caused by organised religions (buddhism included), and i think why is it so difficult for people to find the truth? and then i look at myself and i see the confusion, the hurdles, the difficulties, the chances, and the pain i endured to find this path. it is not as visible as one may think. if it was there would be one teaching, one practice, not all these different sects. the teachings of the buddha are as relevant today as they were 2500yrs ago. so why aren't there more people practicing why is the world in such a chaotic state. buddhism doesnt have to evolve, people still find it, but isn't it a crime for it not to evolve, not to reach its arms out and all those who are suffering. what is the harm in updating old stories to reach a new generation? its selfish of us not to!metta,jason